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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'An audacious and transformative novel about the past, the present and the power of writing and imagination from the award-winning author of Damascus and The Slap.
'Art is not only about rage and justice and politics. It is also about pleasure and joy; it is also about beauty…
In a time of rage and confusion, I wanted to write about beauty.
-Christos Tsiolkas
'A man arrives at a house on the coast to write a book. Separated from his lover and family and friends, he finds the solitude he craves in the pyrotechnic beauty of nature, just as the world he has shut out is experiencing a cataclysmic shift. The preoccupations that have galvanised him and his work fall away, and he becomes lost in memory and beauty …
'He also begins to tell us a story …
'A retired porn star is made an offer he can't refuse for the sake of his family and future. So he returns to the world he fled years before, all too aware of the danger of opening the door to past temptations and long-buried desires. Can he resist the oblivion and bliss they promise?
'A breathtakingly audacious novel by the acclaimed author of The Slap and Damascus about finding joy and beauty in a raging and punitive world, about the refractions of memory and time and, most subversive of all, about the mystery of art and its creation.' (Publication summary)
Notes
-
Author's note: For Wayne van der Stelt
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
- Dyslexic edition.
- Large print.
Works about this Work
-
Christos Tsiolkas in Conversation with Dmetri Kakmi about 7 ½
Dmetri Kakmi
(interviewer),
2023
single work
interview
— Appears in: Kalliope X , Autumn no. 4 2023;'I have admired Christos Tsiolkas since his first book Loaded rammed into the Australian publishing scene in 1995. And although the ‘big P’ – to use the author’s designation – political books that catapulted him to fame didn’t affect me to the same degree, 7 ½ rocked my world.
'It is wild and fearlessly, messily, human. I was so exhilarated, I couldn’t stop myself from emailing him a slew of questions. It was my way of continuing a thrilling reading process – one that took me back to the author’s early work. Jesus Man and Dead Europe came to mind as I powered through this audacious novel.
'Beyond that, there was the thrill of watching a writer turn novelistic expectations on their head by showing the reader what goes on in a writer’s mind as he corralls life’s wild horses and turns them to the services of art.' (Introduction)
-
A Book About Beauty
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , November 2022;
— Review of Seven and a Half 2021 single work novel'I now find it jarring to watch films or television programs which depict characters standing closer than one and a half metres apart, failing to don their face masks, or ignoring the use of hand sanitiser. Their naivety is frustrating and glaring. Literature which sidesteps or ignores the pandemic, the way life is now, comes across as illusory, idealised, or fantastic, as if it is taking place in an alternate universe.' (Introduction)
-
Christos Tsiolkas Seeks Beauty in the New World of Puritans
Fotis Kapetopoulos
(translator),
2022
single work
interview
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , March 2022;'December 2021 I talked to Christos Tsiolkas about his latest novel 7 ½. Russia had not launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine by land, sea, and air. Two weeks into a major war on the European continent and all cultural and political certainties have vanished. The left and woke are confused, as are the nationalist right, it is this type of confusion, which much of 7 ½ deals with in the context of a novel.' (Introduction)
-
Which Story to Tell?
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 35 no. 1 2021; (p. 296-298)
— Review of Seven and a Half 2021 single work novel -
Stinks of New Politics
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 20 November 2021; (p. 16)
— Review of Seven and a Half 2021 single work novel
-
Old Man Yells at Cloud : Christos Tsiolkas Turns to Autofiction
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 437 2021; (p. 29-30)
— Review of Seven and a Half 2021 single work novel'On page 20 of my advance copy of 7½, I insert a line in the margin: ‘Starting to sound like Sōseki’s Kusamakura here’. I had met the author of the passage – a man named Christos Tsiolkas – at the Sydney Writers’ Festival in May, sidling up to the Clare Hotel breakfast bar at an enviably early hour each morning to enjoy fruit and festival conversation. As my pen hovers, I wonder how that gregarious and personable figure squares with the bittersweet register of this novel.' (Introduction)
-
Stinks of New Politics
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 20 November 2021; (p. 16)
— Review of Seven and a Half 2021 single work novel -
A Book About Beauty
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , November 2022;
— Review of Seven and a Half 2021 single work novel'I now find it jarring to watch films or television programs which depict characters standing closer than one and a half metres apart, failing to don their face masks, or ignoring the use of hand sanitiser. Their naivety is frustrating and glaring. Literature which sidesteps or ignores the pandemic, the way life is now, comes across as illusory, idealised, or fantastic, as if it is taking place in an alternate universe.' (Introduction)
-
Which Story to Tell?
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 35 no. 1 2021; (p. 296-298)
— Review of Seven and a Half 2021 single work novel -
Christos Tsiolkas on Retreating from the Outrage Cycle : ‘I’ve Felt as If I Was Disappointing People’
Brigid Delaney
(interviewer),
2021
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 13 November 2021;'Lockdown forced the Australian author to contemplate both his interior life and the big picture. The result is 7½, a work of autofiction that ‘just poured out’'
-
y
Live Recording : Christos Tsiolkas in Conversation
Angela Savage
(interviewer),
2021
23474816
2021
single work
podcast
interview
'A conversation between authors Christos Tsiolkas and Angela Savage to celebrate the release of Tsiolkas' latest novel, Seven and a Half.' (Production summary)
-
Christos Tsiolkas Seeks Beauty in the New World of Puritans
Fotis Kapetopoulos
(translator),
2022
single work
interview
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , March 2022;'December 2021 I talked to Christos Tsiolkas about his latest novel 7 ½. Russia had not launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine by land, sea, and air. Two weeks into a major war on the European continent and all cultural and political certainties have vanished. The left and woke are confused, as are the nationalist right, it is this type of confusion, which much of 7 ½ deals with in the context of a novel.' (Introduction)
-
Christos Tsiolkas in Conversation with Dmetri Kakmi about 7 ½
Dmetri Kakmi
(interviewer),
2023
single work
interview
— Appears in: Kalliope X , Autumn no. 4 2023;'I have admired Christos Tsiolkas since his first book Loaded rammed into the Australian publishing scene in 1995. And although the ‘big P’ – to use the author’s designation – political books that catapulted him to fame didn’t affect me to the same degree, 7 ½ rocked my world.
'It is wild and fearlessly, messily, human. I was so exhilarated, I couldn’t stop myself from emailing him a slew of questions. It was my way of continuing a thrilling reading process – one that took me back to the author’s early work. Jesus Man and Dead Europe came to mind as I powered through this audacious novel.
'Beyond that, there was the thrill of watching a writer turn novelistic expectations on their head by showing the reader what goes on in a writer’s mind as he corralls life’s wild horses and turns them to the services of art.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2022 longlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
- 2022 longlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
